Peak portion of hurricane season underway

August was a quiet month but the Atlantic hurricane season isn’t over yet.

JANNETTE PIPPIN Daily News Staff

August was a quiet month but the Atlantic hurricane season isn’t over yet.

In fact, the peak of the hurricane season is just beginning.

Sept. 10 marks the peak of the season for Eastern North Carolina, with September into mid-October historically being a busy time for tropical activity, said meteorologist Brian Cullen of the National Weather Service office in Newport.

“Anytime during the month of September and into mid-October we are certainly susceptible to tropical activity. We don’t want to let our guard down,” Cullen said.

Sept. 18 is the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Isabel’s landfall near Drum Inlet along the North Carolina coast, leaving its mark on Onslow and Carteret counties before pounding Dare County and moving northward. Hurricanes Fran in 1996 and Floyd in 1999, both well-known to Eastern North Carolina, also made landfall in September.

Hurricane Irene in 2011 hit the area at the tail end of August and Tropical Storm Nicole in 2010, which dumped large amounts of rain on the area, including 22 inches in the Swansboro area, are just a couple of storms that have impacted Onslow County this time of year.

“We’ve had seven hurricanes hit us in September (since 1996) and at least three tropical storms,” said Onslow County Emergency Services Director Norman Bryson.

As of Tuesday, there were several systems being watched out in the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea but they remained tropical waves and posed no threat to the area.

But conditions can change quickly.

That has area emergency management officials reminding area residents to stay alert and be prepared.

“August may have been quiet but September is known to be one of our busiest times of the season for potential hurricanes,” said Carteret County Emergency Management Coordinator Jo Ann Spencer.

Before a storm develops is the time to have an emergency plan for your family and supplies on hand in case of a hurricane.

“Now’s the time, if you haven’t already, to get everything ready so you are not doing so when a storm is at our back door,” she said.

September is also National Preparedness Month.

Bryson said that means having emergency kits ready in case of any emergency, not just hurricanes,

Severe weather such as tornadoes, thunderstorms, wildfires and winter storms, happens throughout the year.

“Emergency preparedness is not just for hurricanes,” Bryson said.

But as September begins, tropical storms are the ones to watch.

According to AccuWeather.com, since 1960 there have been only five years when there were no hurricanes through August – 1967, 1984, 1988, and 2002. Each of those years, there was plenty of hurricane activity to follow.

An average of about nine named systems with about six hurricanes occurred following those hurricane-free Augusts, the AccuWeather data showed.